Narration – speaking happening over what is happening on screen which adds more information into the sequence.

Unreliable narrator –  an untrustworthy storyteller, most often used in narratives with a first-person point of view. 

Backstory – a history or background created for a fictional character in a film or television programme

Flashback – a scene in a film, novel, etc. set in a time earlier than the main story.

Flash forward – show events that will happen at a later time than the main story

Linear narrative – a story in chronological order.

Non-linear narrative – any narrative that doesn’t follow a traditional, chronological order from beginning to end

Ellipsis –  omitting a portion of the sequence of events, allowing the reader to fill in the narrative gaps

Framing devises –  a story that is different from the main story, comes at the beginning and end of it, and adds to it in some way.

Cliff-hanger – a situation or part of a film that is very exciting or frightening because you are left for a long time not knowing what will happen next. 

Closed ending – when a TV show or a film end with no confusion

Macguffin – an object, event, or character in a film or story that serves to set and keep the plot in motion despite usually lacking intrinsic importance.

Foreshadowing –  hinting about what is to come during later events.

Alignment – the way in which we are oriented towards the characters in a narrative in terms of information

POV – point of view – which character the narrative is being told from

Causality – cause-and-effect relationship between events

In media res – in the midst of things, a story that begins partway through its plot, with the missing events filled in later through dialogue, flashbacks, or other techniques.

Masterplot – “skeletal” stories that recur again and again

Subplot – a secondary plot used in film and television that receives less screen time and emphasis than the main plot.

Narrative hook – what grabs the viewer’s attention.

Plot twist – an unsuspected occurrence or turn of events in the story that completely changes the direction or outcome of the plot from the direction it was likely to go.